AI Glossary/Loss Function
Machine Learning

Loss Function

A function that measures how far model predictions are from actual values.

In-depth explanation

Loss functions quantify prediction error, guiding the optimization process. Different tasks use different loss functions: mean squared error (MSE) for regression, cross-entropy for classification, and specialized losses for ranking or detection. The choice of loss function significantly impacts what the model learns to optimize.

Examples

Mean Squared Error
Cross-Entropy Loss
Huber Loss

Related terms

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